Join us on social media!

Meet Lauren

Teacher, resister, advocate, warrior princess. Passionate about a world free of gender-based violence and people becoming their full selves. Loves chocolate, justice, and cats (not necessarily in that order).

Classes for everyone

Defend Yourself has classes for everyone, no matter what your age or ability. Whether you're dealing with street harassment, going off to college, healing from abuse, or any other challenge, we offer skills you can use.

Learn something now

What people say

This class has given me a powerful toolkit and the confidence to yell “NO” and know I have every right to say it. It’s helped me rethink my personal boundaries and feel good about maintaining them.

This class showed me that . . . I have every right to defend myself and take care of myself the best way I know how. My first responsibility is to myself.

What an empowering, enlightening class! You gave me a wonderfully empowering gift – the ability to speak! You helped take away some of the fear that I had by having me realize that I have some power within.

I wish other women/girls could experience THIS feeling of girrrrlpower, instead of listening to Cosmo and Glamour to tell them where their power lies.

I unfortunately had to use some tactics I learned from the workshop, as I was assaulted at the beach this summer. I honestly believe that I avoided a rape because of your training.

Everybody needs this!

I feel so much stronger and more confident. Now I feel good about saying no to something I don’t want, where I used to feel bad about it. This is a big change!

This class was a springboard. Now I know where I need to go in the rest of my life.

Bothering leads to dangerous things and situations if we aren’t careful. We want to try to stop the situation before it gets really dangerous+ACE There are bullies that can start at just being annoying by talking and saying those mean things but it can turn into something very dangerous if you are not careful. So the key is to be very smart and think before you ac– from the book by our students at Jump Start Girls/Adelante Nias

Lauren is very encouraging and patient. An excellent teacher, she makes everyone feel comfortable.